Ah yes... the constant refrain of "just wait, it'll be amazing soon!". Not to pick on Google fans - Apple fans have said the same about the AppleTV for years ("it will have apps soon, because it just has to!").

It's always best to buy based on what the product does *right now*. If it's solving an issue now, then buy it, and anything else that comes later is gravy. But if you buy something hoping it will improve later, you're more often than not throwing your money away.Reply

Well sorry, I don't get it... This is basically a device that you have to push content to. You need to sit there with a PC, phone or tablet, choose the content on that and then send it to the Chromecast thus needing to run that device as well. I want something a little more independent. Some thing that can pull media from my various media servers or from the internet and which does that without forcing me to directly run a second device to do it.Reply

Have you ever tried using Netflix with a TV remote? Being able to browse and select content to play with an iPad or iPhone and have it play on the TV without any effort sounds fantastic. That's a much better experience than using Netflix "independently".Reply

exactly. death to the tv remote. most people always have their phones on them, anyway, so why wouldn't you want a larger, more responsive 4-5" screen to use over a T9 remote (or heaven forbid one of those awful Samsung "flip" QWERTY remotes that's about as responsive as a 96-year old behind the wheel of a towncar.Reply

Actually the Roku remote is pretty sound for using Netflix. Apple TV's remote is similar too. Besides on screen keyboards (which every remote that does not include a native keyboard will suck eggs at) it works fine for me.

The most awesome thing is that it's only $35! That's less than a new PS3 game and a 3rd of the price of a Rokum or Apple TV. For what it does it seems like a really great device.

But as some have mentioned if you have something that does this already like a Roku (configured with PLEX) or Apple TV (hacked to run XBMC) there really isn't a need for this.

Some draw backs is the fact it is only WIFI AND that it can only do 720p playback. Also that the only local content it seems to stream with any consistency is .mp4. Also it doesn't seem to as yet be able to stream local content from a wireless device like a phone or tablet.

I am sure once it gets opened a bit more where it will be able to run more apps from the Play Store it sounds like it will be a really great device. But for now I am willing to wait.Reply

@Guspaz, I already have a 42" Sony Google TV and through the Netflix app on my iPhone I can choose the program I want to watch and it will ask me if I want to view on my Google TV or iPhone. If I choose GTV it starts playing right away. Chromecast doesn't do anything to improve this, as far as I can tell, and so far only has Netflix and Youtube, same as the Google TV has had. That being said, I want to play around with this device to see what it's really capable of. Maybe I'm missing something.Reply

I just plugged in an old laptop and spent my $35 on a Logitech K400 wireless keyboard/touchpad. And the Netflix experience is great with that, as well as any other source of content I can think of, including my NAS and shared drives, plus browsing, chat...

Don't get me wrong, the Chromecast looks to be a great product serving an unmet need at a tantalizing price point. But it's not going to revolutionize content consumption...

What might is the Xbox One when it comes out. All of the above capabilities and true, full-featured integration with my desktop and phone (cable too if I had that), plus a 10-ft UI that doesn't even require a remote much of the time.

Assuming Microsoft executes on its promise, which it does do to an impressive degree sometimes while delivering real head-scratchers at others. Which will this be...?Reply

And I use my media pc with XBMC on it...using a Lenovo remote with trackpad/keyboard and I don't have to do anything special. Ever try typing out letters/numbers in a search box on a tv remote that doesn't have a full keyboard? it sucks.Reply

I was planning to get one of these for traveling for work but you made it seem like a pain plus having to use a hotspot. It makes sense I guess and I didn't really think out that I wouldn't be networked to it over hotel wifi. I'll probably still get one to play around with though with it being so cheap.Reply

I assume this would work if plugged into a HDMI port on my AVI receiver (so I can enjoy sound thru my stereo)? Only problem might be the wireless connection due to it's location in the rear of the receiver. HDMI extension cable?Reply

Would love an article on the miracast week you've had. Been thinking about trying that out and would love to hear more about the pitfalls.Given the new golden-child Nexus 7 (2013) apparently supports it that would be a great context for an article.Reply

I do plan on getting one, but I wish they made a wired version with ethernet instead of wifi. I live in a crowded apartment building and prefer to hard wire anything that isn't mobile. It seems they could hit the same price point by dropping wifi and adding ethernet unless wifi is already integrated into the chip? If that's the case I'd pay $10 more for a wired/wireless version.Reply

The licensing implications of Tab casting are interesting to me. Hulu (or more likely Hulu's content providers) cannot be happy and may force Google to somehow disable Chromecast on their website. Or I can dream, and maybe they will realize the futility of making an artificial distinction between clients and will stop the BS.Reply

Hulu et al have a bit of a problem though. Since the tab casting is mirroring it never sees the Chromecast directly and should have no way to see anything but the Chrome browser. The Chrome browser is among the most popular in the world.So Hulu and the rest have one play. They can stop their sites from being visible on one of the most popular browsers in the world. Even if they decided to make that play thinking they'd drive people off Chrome to other browsers Google (or whomever) could quite easily make a similar extension for Firefox which also plays well with WebRTC. So hulu would probably end up having to block Chrome and Firefox. That would be insanity for any web company.In any event I would imagine a firefox extension to work with Chromecast will show up sooner or later.Reply

According to what google has been doing, a first party chromecast app for windows 8/RT is not likely to come, but I hope someone can make one as it can be really useful if it is integrated in windows Share/PlayTo(on win8.1).Reply

This is exciting because it's open and easy for devs to add the functionality while users don't have to wait on Google or install apps on the device to gain functionality. Many more things to say about it but won't do that now, except that i hope they won't censor content and it's a pity they released it when it still looks at best like a beta.Things like local media playback not just tabs, phone to phone , more apps supporting it (including some other Google services like Docs) would have been nice to have at launch.Google managed to keep it simple and it's cheap but it's in beta and it's not easy to explain what the thing is to the consumer and they haven't found a great way to do so. Nice to see that Google pulled a Google in a time when they seem to have lost it and it has a strong chance of taking off fast. Now if they would also get rid of that huge "NSA Inside" label on the box....Reply

It's hard to get rid of a label born of pure accusation. Leaving aside that they have disclaimed the accusation the problem at hand is this. Whatever Google has or has not done - what you are asking them to do now is to get people like yourself to stop saying they have done it. And they have no way to do that.Reply

Heh, funny you should note that the Chromecast might be the first Motorola/Google product, since ironically it doesn't work correctly with any of the Motorola OMAP4/Jellybean 4.1 devices (Bionic/RAZR/MAXX/Droid 4).

Yup, it seems to be something with the WIFI implementation on those phones. It will sometimes find the device, but be unable to complete the setup (fails after entering AP information). I was able to complete setup just fine with a laptop, and then it will mostly work, but the Chromecast app still doesn't think it's set up. Apparently some features will still be missing, but I haven't explored it fully yet.Reply

A video streaming device that doesn't do 5 ghz? That makes no sense.Roku does much more and the Chromecast isn't all that small when you add the HDMI cable and power supply. Which Google went out of their way to pretend didn't exist.This review was really too uncritical of the shortcomings of this device.Reply

Chromecast looks nice, but I'm not sure why everyone's raving about it. For me, it's nearly useless. I don't have Netflix, I don't have any media bought off Google Play and there isn't a lot on YouTube that's worth displaying on a big screen.

What I do have is a mass load of music and ripped Blu-rays (main movie in an MKV container with just the English audio track) stored on my home server, accessible as an SMB share. From what I can gather, I won't be able to play any of my locally stored media on a Chromecast. I don't see why a device that's supposed to do media streaming can't even do something this basic.

I agree. If it helps, apparently Chrome tabs can play a lot of media file types if you drag them in. You can then use Chrome Tab Casting to view it. However, I can only imagine a significant degradation in quality if the source was a decent quality 1080p file.

So for me too, this is more of a solution looking for a question.Reply

Well, I have the same "problem", another is that I use subtitles, which means that every time I want to have subtitles on some movie I have to re-encode the movie even if it was in some supported format.Also my tv (and well, most recent tvs) already is capable of accessing websites and stream content with DLNA so i'm really unsure what is the point of a device like chromecast...Reply

Well, that's the thing, chrome may play mkv's but the chromecast thingie only supports a limited amount of codecs, so unless you have all the streams (audio,video,subs) in a supported format you need to re-encode the streams.And if you need to re-encode there is not much of difference between re-encoding for chromecast or to a DNLA supported codec which is probably already supported by your tv.Reply

You have to realize there is a broader market for this stuff then straight up geeks. Half the population is using smart phones - which doesn't even say anything about tablet usage. How many of that set do you think also has a media collection on dlna servers? You think that is about half the population?This simply might not be a product directed at you.Also it is probably a matter of weeks before plex has this enabled. I would imagine by Christmas there will be several avenues available for media geeks with home collections to use chromecast. And that is completely aside from the mirrored screen casting features.Reply

Thanks for the article. Excellent first version of this product but as I decided not to be more an early adopter I'll wait for the Chromecast 2 or 3 with all the features it should have the first version.As WiFi 5Ghz VP9 hardware decoding ethernet, Miracast 1080p or even 4k mentioned here - artilce + comments - . The price is the best.

And If I where a TV brand I would put inside my models something compatible - same software - but with this better features I wrote before as it seems this time Google TV is betting to be the new TV standard with or without chromecast and as we know standards - even if they are worse - usually winReply

"After spending a week tearing my hair out over Miracast (which frankly has the worst interoperability in the entire industry)"

Could you provide some insights on your experience with the bad interoperability of Miracast?I would be interested, because so far only very few devices are certified for Miracast, but those which are certified worked quite well for me until now...Reply

Oh, except that Samsung "AllShare" dongle I just remembered. They somehow upgraded the firmware of it to support Miracast somehow, but despite having it certified, they officially don't really support Miracast...Reply

I'm confused. Right now I have a laptop with broken screen connected to a TV through HDMI. This setup handles most streaming efficiently, and I wonder if Chromecast will replace it with better efficiency. Maybe I'm facing my moment of being a tech-norant at age of 41, but I don't get the concept of the Chromecast. Does it receive all media data through laptop or tablet/smartphone that controls it remotely, or will it be streamed directly to Chromecast, which then decode it once the remote control - selecting channel/source, etc. ? If it is the former case, what is the difference between having a laptop connected and Chromecast connected to TV? I understand that the size is huge difference, and the price as well, but someone like me with extra laptop or media box like Zotac Z-box already, is there any benefit of having Chromecast? I'm not rejecting it, I am just confused. Reply

You will see no benefit.Chromecast uses both methods you describe. For the apps with it built in the controlling device is doing nothing but acting as a control channel. The content is streamed directly from the cloud source by the chromecast device.For the beta tab-casting feature using a Chrome browser on a computer - the source computer is encoding everything and streaming it to the Chromecast. It is actively mirroring it's content to the Chromecast itself.To the Chromecast device itself these thing are indistinguishable I imagine.In any event if Google could hand out laptops with no screens for $35 this would be an even more amazing product.Reply

Correct, this looks to compete directly with Airplay. I think the excitement around this stems from the fact that 1.) it's cheaper than anything airplay enabled 2.) and more "open" (as opposed to being locked to a single platform).

Obviously, it'll take time for the developers and hackers to really dig in, but it's definitely a promising little device.Reply

It does a subset of the things ATV does, since ATV can:-Be used standalone without any other device-AirPlay local files from device-to-device (pictures/videos/apps)-Full 1:1 screen mirroring, no browser needed-Act as AirPlay receiver for multiple streams simultaneously (multi-room A/V)-More support from content owners: Hulu, HBO Go, MLB/NBA/NHL, etc

It seems that only the beta channel of Chrome has the option to share your entire desktop. You might want to test that.

Also, I don't think the "second mode" as you called it, works purely over LAN. In part I think that's the source of the delay. Try casting a tab then cutting your internet. If I'm right the tab casting should stop despite the fact that there is still a LAN.Reply

Only reason I was going to buy a Chromecast is because after accounting for 3 free months of Netflix, throwing away $11 on a gadget I wouldn't use much was OK with me.

Since they got rid of the 3 free months, there's no reason for me to blow $35 on something I won't use much. Especially since my XBMC pc hooked up to my receiver and TV gives me a lot more functionality - at no additional cost to me - that does all the same, and more, than Chromecast.Reply

Clearly they don't need to offer 3 free months of Netflix any longer. There is tremendous, even say overwhelming demand. With the Netflix offer, it was a steal. Right now, Chromecast is backordered for a month at most sites, and it's still a very good value for money.

Many of us have products that do some of the things Chromecast does, but Chromecast does some things with an ease not found in many far more expensive solutions.

I too have an existing media machine, one that is far more expensive than Chromecast. I still like the Chromecast. It's easy, it's wireless, it's cheap, it just works.

Even if you have an existing media machine, don't knock Chromecast until you've tried it. And that's now, before it even has wide support. A device with this much demand and an open SDK is destined for greatness.Reply

Miracast works fine for me with my S3 and my gf's Note II. One gotcha is it doesn't like rooted devices; you have to hide root for it to work. Also if the receiver's too close to the TV (well my plasma at least) it doesn't connect; bringing it a foot in front of the TV gets around that. This is with the Netgear PTV3000.Reply

Hmmmm dang. Kinda disappointed with the lack of 5Ghz Wifi especially with most reviews claiming that you need a strong signal. I know 5Ghz doesn't reach very far, but it's usually still faster even with a weaker signal.Reply

Interesting...another worthless device on the market, at least it is cheap this time around. I thought, and I thought, and I thought...yep, the best might be to use it as wireless mp3 transmitter from your phone to your receiver, unless your receiver doesn't come with that functionality already, of course. Along with the disappointing Nexus 7 concept /anybody let me know how to use Nexus on a 14 hour flight as a video player for the kids, if it doesn't come with microSD AGAIN???/It is so sad that the contemporary software and electronics just plain sucks, from a user perspective. And why the kids are so excited about some castrated stuff like this, I still cannot comprehend :).Reply

Yeah, dont get it either, iMediaShare, does most of this?OUYA, missed the point, poor execution, now this. Too complicated, most people want it to be idiot proof like most apple stuff, too much pushing and pulling, people will give up before finishing reading about it.Its simple, display phone or tablet on tv, no extra hardware. You shouldn't need anything but your phone or tablet.This is not the death of the smart tv.IMOReply

This stick may not be of much value once the android community figures out how to receive chromecast signal on Rockchip quad core android mini PCs. Granted its cheaper, but the mini-PCs can do so much more than just receive and display whats being cast. Reply

For $35, you can also get a Rikomagic device off of Amazon. The difference is that while the $35 one is a bit sluggish, it does run full Android 4.0.4 (or newer if you get a newer version that also costs a bit more) with Play Store and everything. Think of it as an Android tablet without a touchscreen or battery. Just plug it into your TV, add in a usb mouse/keyboard (preferably wireless) and you are good to go. It also supports Airplay and MiraCast. Reply

I have a question. I want to stream Netflix to my HDTV, but I want to have subtitles because my husband is hard of hearing. When I stream from my cable router via my Samsung Blu-Ray, I cannot get subtitles when I push the Subtitles button on the remote. BUT I can get subtitles (closed caption) on my iPad when streaming from Netflix. If I get a Google Chromecast, will I be able to get the movies WITH subtitles on my HDTV? It is also a Samsung product, and it supports subtitles on Netflix DVDs. Any advice appreciated!Reply